


An Introduction

by wigglebox



Series: The Professors - A 100 Themes Challenge [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, First Meetings, M/M, Professors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2017-01-24
Packaged: 2018-09-19 07:34:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9426680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wigglebox/pseuds/wigglebox
Summary: I decided to take on a 100 Themes challenge. The first one is "Introduction"!I'm happy the fic moved in the direction of them being professors. I think it's a world I can keep expending on if I want.





	

One of the biggest mysteries of life is how colleges and universities take billions of dollars from their students, but couldn’t get a proper laptop projection to work. 

Cas had to end his last class of the day 30 minutes early because the ceiling-mounted projector wasn’t working  _ again _ . He knew he could talk about the Sepik River tribes until he’s blue in the face, but his class may not have appreciated it without visuals. 

On top of having an extra half hour from the cancelled class, he also needed to wait another hour for the tech guy to get in there. Frank was always grumpy he had to do  _ work _ , took his sweet ass time to get to said task, and always talked Cas’s ear off. It was an event that Cas seldom liked to revisit. 

Cas set up shop at the desk up in front of the lecture hall. He figured he could grade some papers so he could actually enjoy his Friday night. He had a six pack of craft beer in his fridge courtesy of his brother, and The Office has all the seasons ready to stream on Netflix. The less work he had to do the better.

Cas took out his trusty red pen and made himself as comfy as he could on the standard office chair when the door opened. 

Turning, Cas was faced not with the ruddy, lined face of a man who never smiled once in his life but with a younger one. Cas had seen him a few times during the week, walking the hall outside his classroom. 

“I heard there’s some electrical issues in here?” the man asked. He had a black bag looped over his shoulder, wearing a black t-shirt under a flannel with a pair of well worn jeans. 

“Uh yeah. Who are you?” Cas asked, standing. The man looked about Cas’s own age, if not a bit younger. His face read too pretty to be a standard electrician or maintenance man, bright hazel/green eyes too full of life to be crawling around in air ducts and plugging in lights. 

The man stepped forward, hand outstretched. 

“I’m Dean Winchester. I’m the new Engineering professor one floor down,” he said, giving a small smile as Cas took his hand. Cas remembered a memo going around to staff at the beginning of the semester about several new hires. Cas always ignored them since he rarely cared to interact with other professors. 

“They sent an engineer to help with the projector?” Cas asked, instead of a  _ Hello, thank you for assisting me _ .

Dean laughed and dropped his bag. He bent down and unzipped it, pulling out a pair of work gloves.

“Frank’s out sick and I was still in the building. Figured I’d help out.” Dean said, “You’ll also have to help. Frank locked his office which had the ladder so you’ll need to spot me when I stand on the chairs.”

Cas nodded, watching Dean pull the gloves on. They somehow highlighted how bare the rest of his arms were. Cas could appreciate the almost porn-like set up to the situation, but also thought it was pretty stupid that Dean covered his hands but left his arms open to be electrocuted.

Dean also took out a flashlight and some sort of all purpose screwdriver. He stuck the screwdriver in the back of his pants, turned to Cas while slamming the bottom of the flashlight with his hand. 

“So what happened?” Dean asked, still fiddling with the flashlight that clearly needed new batteries.

“The projector broke,” Cas stated flatly.

Dean laughed as the flashlight flickered to light in Cas’s face.

“Oops sorry. No I mean, what happened did it go blue before it shut off? Did it flicker?” 

“No, it just went black. No signal or anything.”

Dean nodded solemnly as he pulled out a pair of wire cutters and stuck them in his back pocket as well. He then made for the middle of the back row of seats, Cas trailing behind him unclear of what he should do, other than point out the obvious. 

“So you protected your hands, what if your arms get electrocuted?” The words eventually tumbling out of his mouth due to the lack of him being able to keep thoughts in his head.

Dean only laughed as he tested a chair with his foot. 

“It’s for rats. Learned that lesson a long time ago.” Dean took off his right glove and shoved his finger in Cas’s face, revealing a long scar up his pointer finger. Cas made a face, and Dean laughed again.

Dean turned back to the chair. After determining it could hold his weight for a long enough time, he climbed up. His head brushed the ceiling, just too short of his goal. 

“Alright looks like I gotta climb up on the backs. These bolted to the floor?” 

“Yeah, I think so.” 

“You gotta spot me man. I’m light on my feet but I got big ones so…” Dean said as he moved to the thin metal back of the lecture chairs. 

There was no delicate way for Cas to hold this strange man to prevent him from snapping his neck on the hard chairs below. Cas lifted his hands, awkward and stuttering. Dean managed to climb up onto the back of the chair, his boots gripping some part of it between the ridges. The ceiling was light tile and while he held on, he was shaking for balance. Cas placed his hands on Dean’s hips, and Dean’s crotch was almost right in front of him.

“Hands, waist, please.” Dean grunted and Cas moved his hands just above the slip of skin that was showing from the ridden up t-shirt. Dean huffed in annoyance, “Tighter man, I’m not a porcelain doll.”

Cas tightened his grip on the demand, and Dean steadied. Looking up, Cas saw the ceiling above the ceiling opened up, flooded with light. Dean made a satisfied noise.

“Yeah, something nibbled the wires… hang on.”

Dean went silent and Cas went looking around for anything else to look at. Straight ahead was teasing, slightly tanned skin, barely peaking out from under a black curtain of fabric. If Cas looked down, he would get a face full of crotch which, usually he’s not opposed to but at this point felt inappropriate. 

“So you’re the Anthropology department head right? What’s that like?” Dean asked, breaking the silence.

“Yes. Hardly a department but...I mean it’s okay….” Cas trailed off. He wasn’t used to talking about being an Anthropologist outside his class and his bubble of fellow professors. People always think it’s cool until you tell them every bias they have against another group of people is illogical. Cas learned early on people don’t like feeling stupid, but it was amazing how stupid people could actually be. 

“Sounds cool to me man. I don’t know too much about it,” Dean said, grunting as he worked in the space between ceilings. 

His tone was trusting, and Cas felt like he was actually interested in it. And if Dean turned out not to be,  _ oh well _ it was just another person Cas didn’t feel like talking to ever again. 

“It started in high school. I had a class where we learned about the Abrahamic faiths --”

“What’s that?” Dean asked shortly before a soft thump and a curse. 

“The Abrahamic faiths. Christianity, Judaism, Islam…” Dean continued to work as Cas paused, “I liked learning about how everything was interconnected and yet caused so much conflict that I just went with it into college. When I got my masters, I moved to Morocco for several years, got my Doctorate, and now I’m here.”

Dean stopped and maneuvered himself so he could look down at Cas.

“You lived in Morocco? ”

Cas took it on himself to speak for the next 10 minutes about the book he wrote on Moroccan culture and Western traditions; spoke about the group of men he’d meet every day for morning gossip, and how Shakshouka became his favourite food.

Dean for his part, though distracted by the job at hand, asked him questions. He seemed engaged enough to keep Cas talking when usually Cas buttoned the conversation up after the first minute. Cas forgot he was holding Dean’s life or at least the lack of serious injury in his hands as he went on and on about his experiences in Morocco, Israel, Syria, and then India.

“And what about you? Engineering?” Cas asked, feeling like he talked way too much about himself for such a casual encounter. 

“Yeah,” Dean grunted, another thump, another curse, “I used to work at Virgin Galactic.”

“Virgin Galactic? Like, with the rockets?” 

Dean laughed, shifted more onto his toes and Cas tightened his grip.

“Sort of. I was the Spaceline Engineering Manager over there.” 

“That… that sounds like a job that pays a lot more than anything they’ll give you here.” Cas stated. 

“Wow, you really say it as you see it huh?” Dean asked. Cas flushed and cleared his throat. He knew he lacked people skills and sometimes asinine comments slipped out. For a brief moment, he wished Frank was here so he could just sit and grade papers with no conversation. 

“What I meant was, why did you leave a job like that?” Cas asked. 

Dean took a moment, his arms working above Cas methodically. It occurred to Cas that once again, he spoke too bold in asking such a personal question to someone he knew for only 30 minutes. But he couldn’t help but be curious, considering he himself had the chance for wealth and success and instead turned to eating street food and earning a moderate professor’s salary. 

“Just wanted a change.” Dean moved forward more on his toes, almost leaning into Cas at this point with the black shirt just millimeters away from Cas’s nose. Cas noted the short tone in Dean’s voice. He pried too much. 

“All done. Should work until Tuesday when Frank can come in with some new wires. Help me down and we’ll go check it out.” Dean’s voice had a clipped tone that shot a bolt of guilt down Cas’s spine.

Cas successfully helped Dean back down to the ground without making eye contact. Without a word, he hurried over to the laptop on the lectern and powered it on. Silence filled the room as Dean rummaged through the duffle bag. Cas kept thinking about how he unintentionally crossed the line with someone he just met, and that’s just great Castiel that’s what you always do which is why you watch Netflix alone on Friday night’s. 

The computer turned out and the projection screen turned blue, then light up with the last slide on Cas’s presentation. 

“What the fuck is that?” 

Cas looked up and saw Dean staring, mouth opened at the large image before him. Two younger boys from a Sepik River tribe being cut by elders. Three older men stood by watching, their skin already scared from their ritual years before. 

“Ritualistic rites of passage.” Cas stated and promptly closed it, the projection screen going black once more. 

Dean shook his head and bent to pick his bag up. 

“That shit’s so weird” he muttered, turning to walk out the door. Cas stiffened at the all too familiar words.

“It’s only weird because you don’t know it.” Cas said shoving his laptop in his bag. Dean stopped and turned. “You built machines that would take you into space, possibly one day finding other worlds. What if we found another species in space? Would you find them weird? Sometimes where the exploration and understanding needs to start is our own world.”

Cas looked up from his bag and saw Dean still standing by the door, just staring at him. 

Ignoring  him, Cas slung the bag over his shoulder and made for the door himself. He stopped right in front of Dean, both of them in the doorway, as close as they were several minutes prior. 

“My class is at 2:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You’re more than welcome to attend if you want to learn something,” Cas sniffed, tilting his chin up slightly. He didn’t want to be rude but people insulting his passion was something he had to deal with since high school from friends and family. He’d be damned if he let a stranger who he helped insult him and his work as well. 

Dean remained expressionless for half a moment before his mouth curled into a smirk. 

“I’ll be teaching my own class, but I’ll be more than happy to look over your notes afterwards.”

Cas pointed a finger in Dean’s face, eyes narrowing, “ _ You _ are the weird one.”

Dean laughed and slung an arm around Cas’s shoulder as he shut the lights off in the room and steered them out of the doorway and down the abandoned hall. 

**Author's Note:**

> I decided to take on a 100 Themes challenge. The first one is "Introduction"!  
> I'm happy the fic moved in the direction of them being professors. I think it's a world I can keep expending on if I want.


End file.
